COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE IS FUN – At least that’s the impression left by environmental activist Peter White of Mashpee, left, and Tom Capizzi of Capizzi Home Improvement in Cotuit last week. They attended a forum at Cape Cod Community College.

College forum lays out issues, opportunities

The northeastern United States is the seventh largest producer of global-warming pollution worldwide, beating Canada and the United Kingdom.

That should be a wake-up call for America, Dr. Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists told an audience at Cape Cod Community College June 19.

Frumhoff, chairman of the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment study, spoke at a forum on “Confronting Climate Change on Cape Cod and New England.”

“Climate change represents a very serious threat to the Cape & Islands,” Cape Cod Commission Executive Director Paul Niedzwiecki said in response, “and Cape Cod is recognized as a global identity in the extent that we could lead in change and set an example.”

The forum began as the college cafeteria filled with invited environmentally conscious leaders and activists from towns across the Cape and Islands.

“We need people from all different organizations, backgrounds, towns, and governments to come together and share ideas,” said Chris Powicki, president of the sponsoring Cape & Islands Renewable Energy Collaborative.

The forum included a “Living Local Dinner” catered by ECOROO, affiliated with the RooBar Restaurant. Local businesses such as E&T farms of West Barnstable provided fresh organic foods. The menu included native fruits and veggies along with finger sandwiches made from local free-range chicken eggs, local cucumbers, local greens, and locally baked breads.

Friendly faces such as Peter White, founding member of the Mashpee Environmental Coalition, walked around the cafeteria introducing themselves, their cause, and what they were hoping to gain from the forum. Tom Capizzi, owner of Capizzi Home Improvement in Cotuit, said he wants his company to construct greener and more environmentally friendly homes and other buildings.

The forum ended with questions and concerns for a panel including Dr. Kathleen Schatzberg, president of Cape Cod Community College; Wendy Northcross, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce; and Bob Prescott, director of Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

Schatzberg said that the college got into environmental technology in 1995 and has been trying to use more renewable energy and less energy altogether since. The campus is equipped with several solar panels and there are plans to install a wind turbine.

“You need real places to try things out and it also serves as a tool to train students how to install and service renewable energy sources,” Schatzberg said. The college is offering several renewable energy courses this fall in response to student interest.

Frumhoff told the audience that the temperature has increased two degrees since 1970, and that winters are warming doubly as fast. In time, he said, the average day in New England will feel like a hot day in South Carolina, giving us a month of days during the summer over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

“The choices we make today are critical to the types of climates we see in the second half of the century,” he said. He added that people must prepare for changes that are now unavoidable because there are limits to adaptation.

“We face an opportunity to expand dramatically in energy efficiency,” Frumhoff concluded, “And we do not have a moment to waste. The time to act is now.”